Quote (Goomshill @ 4 Jul 2024 17:23)
What are the parallels? There have been a lot of more repressive more disagreeable regimes than the Taliban, who are mostly a decentralized bunch of goatherd tribal chieftains. And other countries have experienced huge quality of life increases in the past few decades, but that's also been dependent on actually having resources or those centralized powers to sign up for urbanization paid for by the Chinese as they snake their tendrils into the third world. Similarly the world bank has been able to leverage western investment to not just prop up quality of life but also force our own moral system on them, which would have hypothetically been a hedge against the regressive Taliban. Maybe in another timeline we could soften their policies and have some liberalized enclaves like Kabul in exchange for us building up infrastructure that wasn't just going to get torched in a war.
Best case scenario, Afghanistan just wound up in the same lack of development except with tens of thousands of civilians dead and a more militarized and empowered Taliban. Worst case scenario, we stopped them from modernizing at the hands of foreign masters whether east or west. Either way they're worse off than if we had left them alone
Afghanistan is an extremely poor and underdeveloped country, landlocked, far away from the major global trading routes, surrounded by stagnating neighbors, with difficult geography and climate, no infrastructure, barely any natural resources, a very uneducated population and a thoroughly backward society/culture, with no national unity either. I just don't see the basis for them having any sort of strong economic development.
Compare this to Cambodia, which has some sort of national unity, sea access, proximity to the most important trading route on the planet, an emerging tourism industry and benefits from the economic miracle in neighboring Vietnam. Also a more flat geography and warm climate with plenty of fertile farmland. And like all of SE Asia, a culture which places great importance on education.